Although there are many aspects of supply chains that can be optimized,
we focus on vehicle routing. Mathematically, the wide variety of
combinatorial optimization problems go by the umbrella name of
“vehicle routing problems” (VRP) [1]}, [2]}. The VRP variant studied in this paper is closely modeled after
the supply chain of Aisin Corporation, and is thus very
complex. It involves many trucks, nodes, and goods that must be carried
by trucks in ways that satisfy certain routing constraints. We explain
this vehicle routing problem by building it up, starting from a very
basic one.
